Pros and cons of social media as a contribution to your marketing

Social media has taken over our lives drastically. Not only it is used as a social platform, but also people use it as a communication system, news stand, opinion sharing and so much more. There are favourable as well as unfavorable results of using social media as a personal account as well as a corporate one.

Having a social presence…?

Worst thing is, if and when you do not have a presence in the famed social media world, it is taken by a majority of public as “backwards”. No matter how it can guide us in a wrong manner, how it divulges our whole lives to outside or how it affects our outlook on people and incidents; one must be present in Facebook or Instagram. They have to share the news of their lives, tell others what they eat and drink and which concerts they attend or movies they see. It is not fair to say that all these happened due to sudden bloom of social media. People used to share details, gossip and criticize each other with their friends and family or simply in public; nevertheless, with social media it has magnified in alarming rates.

How it affects a corporate

Your personal account is your own thing; even if you are being a bit egoistic, or having a righteous feeling over what another said, it is on you. Unless you are a public figure, having to maintain a certain persona around you, it can’t hurt personally to you. But, when you are a corporate, what the person handling the accounts put out there, becomes what the company stands for. It is a bit political, in that sense; how a collective decision can be arrived at, to be communicated to the world. Most times what happens is the person or the team handling the social media deciding what to publish based on a higher directive or sometimes from what the brand or company usually stands for or past actions. While you can always direct potential and existing customers to visit website for more details, the first few seconds are the most important and crucial.

Practical examples

We have seen more than once how corporates and public person’s accounts “mess it up”. This mainly happens due to miscommunication or misunderstanding. When the management wants one message to go out, the actual operational staff comprehend it in a different way and publish it. It could be they get half the message, hence an incomplete communication going out to the world, which is even scarier; or they publish something entirely different to what was told. There have been some incidents where the top wanted something to be published and later blame it on the minor staff if they faced backlash from the communities later.

Like everything else, there are pros and cons of having a social media presence as well. It is in the hands of the management team to ensure that the right message goes out by including it in the strategic plans of a company.